1879

Phalke's family moved to Bombay when his father joined the teaching staff of the Wilson/Elphinstone College

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Dada is writing in his book, remembering himself as the young boy who came to Bombay for the first time:

The thought of Bombay excites Dhundhi, but he is saddened by the seperation from his friend. Somewhere, he is hurt.

He takes his frustration out on his sister, who is teasing him for his tears. He is around nine years old.

With his parents, uncle, brother and sister,Dhundhi first crosses the sacred Godavari river from Trymbak to Nasik.

They then catch a train bound for Bombay.

That evening on the train, Dhundhi's father takes out a miniature ritual yagnavedi in metal to perform his evening puja.

From the train we see, at a far distance, a huge bellows camera being carried on a bullock cart handled by eight Lilliputian men.

As within, a ritual is taking place, the train stops and the eight men assemble and load the Gulliver-like camera to take a single profile shot of the entire length of the train.

The sight of the huge machine mesmerizes Dhundhi, the boy.

The train moves on.

After a while, it enters a cave-like Victoria Terminus, almost as though entering a camera obscura, and halts.

A crowd gets off.

Dhundhi is seperated from his family and gets lost.

Darkness descends.

He is alone in a deserted Victoria Terminus], bewitched by the carvings of gargoyles, lizards, lions, tigers, flora and fauna, like in a fairyland.

Suddenly it satrs to rain, and everything comes to life.

Streams of water pour out of the stone mouths of mythical monsters, frothing at the jaws.

Dhundhi is shaken, shivering with cold, crying for his father in the dark.

But it is still unreal twilight outside VT station that a group of boys from the JJ School of Arts sit with hammers and knives, carving out figures on the terraces and the tops. The cotton loaders are tasing a Victoria look-alike, a mad woman at the fountain outside.

Picking up leaves as if to build a nest, small birds move above.

A Victoria enters and drags a woman away by the hair.

A mad dog chases Dhundhi through a backdrop- streets, railways lines, ships and factories.

He enters a palace and finds the princess stretching her arms and calling his name, and then metamorphising into a frightening old woman.

With a jerk, Dhundhi comes awake.

He is fifteen years old.

remember to put in the picture of the copper moon behind Flora Fountain. collect women and moon rabbit and moon.

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The Zoopraniscope projector was designed by Muybridge to project glass discs projecting sequences of pictures painted from the photographic series.

First electrified railroad. Arc lamp, Ball-bearing.

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In a time when many minds were restlessly inventing new devices, often simultaneously, Edison had the knack of making the loudest noise to say " I made this". Edison lit up a street in Menlo Park and invited people to see his incandescent bulb. The bulb itself had been invented decades earlier, but this was the first time that such a practical version had been made, moreover, publicly demonstrated. Besides, it was part of a larger system of production.. the Edison generator. Each flamboyant demonstration by the The "Wizard of Menlo Park", was like Edison's Mount Rushmore, the size of the spectacle seeking to ensure him a loud presence in the history of inventions. At the same time, he was taking care of all legalities, buying patents fast. And as a powerful businessman, selling his version of the invention and also ancillary products, and making his place in the houses of the new consumers.

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An actor dressed in a saree, habituated to covering his mouth with his hand to hide his moustache, is sitting beside the bear cage. Prabhakar is sitting by. The actor is telling him a 'true story' about his hometown, Pune.

Actor

Vasudeo Balwant Phadke is a great man today, a mad dacoit who has frightened the British. He used to come to my uncle's akhada to learn wrestling, you know. He would never even wrestle, just stand there and watch the others, in the manner that you Brahmans have.

Prabhakar:

You knew him?

They used to call him home to eat, he would sit in their kitchen and eat off so much chivda. He told good jokes, Kaka told me. And he had a wound on his shoulder, that he would always hide with his towel. He said he had hurt himself on the fence one day, but then they got to know, who he really was.

Prabhakar is listening wide eyed

Actor:

In the military accounts department for 15 years now, Vasudeo Balwant Phadke is used to the presence of paper. Plenty of paper, many files, and a pride in knowing how to write in English.

That afternoon in the large stone cavern of the office, in a cool darkness, Vasudeo metamorphoses. His hair shrinks first, becomes unruly. Then his toes flow out in curves ending in a flourish of nails. His eyes open wide, then wider, and redden with angry veins. His fingers let go of their role as a pen clutch. They open up begin to flow wildly like pennants in a blue sky. His long fingered hand sweeps the table clean and makes all on it disappear, out of sight, under it- the inkpot falling on the papers and all the wretched English that was written on them. The papers astrew on the floor.

No one notices? Or people just let it be. They know his grievance..he had applied for leave to meet his ailing mother, but the leave application had taken its time touring so many desks, that his mother had died meanwhile.

Actor 2:

Ahhh, that is too sad, too sad. But such is the pain that people bear in their bosoms. Such is the pain that I..

he shakes his head as the other actor interrupts him to continue.

Actor:

Like a slow caterpillar, the quiet Vasudeo had been standing in corners, watching the wrestlers at Lahuji's Gajpeth talimkhana for a while. He saw upper caste revolutionaries, including Tilak, had been frequenting this place run by a lowly Mang. They were seeking the pulse of Parsuram, the warrior brahman.. they came to the Mang to find it. And what a fighter he was, Lahuji! And he spoke so well.

Even as the office ate away so many of his precious hours, Vasudeo would make his way to the talimkhana when he could.. and with every conversation made there, with every energetic roll of body he made on the sand there, he was spinning himself his chrysalis.

When the chrysalis finally moulted, a fine angry face with light eyes unfurled itself with glorious creases all over its skin. The printing machines in Pune would go made making his images, soon. He would serve paper no more, paper would serve him.

In one fell swoop, one bearded man had defeated another.. Lytton's Arms Act and Vernacular Press Act were both rubbished, as the lithographic presses found new energy to run and bring out images, and a government clerk took to arms.

When the butterfly-brahman-bandit flew over the landscape on a horse, leading an army of Ramoshis, he was followed by skyfuls of screeching parrots that flew away from the Chitrashala prints. He wanted no more truck with the ill kept bodies, prone to acidity, of his own community. He would never keep writing in a file again either, he fought, and he lived among those who fought. Their first joyous raid was at the house of a local business man in a village in Pune district..there, in his vault, was the collections of income tax to hand over to the government. Vasudeo and his army looted the British loot, and decided they would work to give it back to the people.

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When two strong men come face to face though they come from the ends of the earth Coleridge

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Babaraya:

Did Prabhakar really tell that story to you, Baba?

Sarasvati kisses Prabhakar's head:

He was a great storyteller, always.

She looks across at her husband.

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Art School teachers are organising public exhibitions. In 1879, Perstonji received the Viceroy's gold medal for his Head of a Gosain. He had won the overall prize at the exhibition, which went some way in loosening the category of a mere 'native artist'. 25 women artists also participated in 1879, most of them Bengali and married.

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